EFF statement on the DA’s frivolous legal action against the planned national shutdown on 20th of March 2023
14 March 2023
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has noted the intended legal action by the Democratic Alliance (DA), with regards to the planned National Shutdown on the 20th of March 2023. The DA's anti-democratic publicity stunt, is frivolous, misguided and is a confirmation that the DA still seeks to salvage the Cyril Ramaphosa Presidency as a proxy of its neo-liberal policy outlook.
The first fallacy of the claims of the Democratic Alliance, is that the National Shutdown is illegal, and will be characterized by violence and mobilization towards it has been based on intimidation. This is false, as the right to protest is enshrined in the Constitution of South Africa, and will not only be practiced by the EFF, but multiple stakeholders who have expressed their intention to form part of the shutdown.
Their second baseless claim of intimidation and predicted violence, is part and parcel of the DA's racist philosophical outlook, which depends strongly on the supposed irrationality of black people, and the racist presumption that African people have no capacity to express themselves in a peaceful manner.
Their racism is clear because when they formed part of National Demonstrations against former President Jacob Zuma, they never feared any forms of violence or intimidation. Today, because they are in the same camp with Ramaphosa and are not part of the march, the march will suddenly be violent.
The EFF, the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), the Land Party have all expressed their intention to form part of the National Shutdown, and none of these organizations which represent both the democratic will of our people through elections, and the labour sector, have expressed any intention to commit criminality or violence.
The DA is therefore raising a false alarm, because they rely on the logic of Swaart-Gevaar, in which black people demonstrating against the conditions in which they live pose a threat to the status-quo.
More pointedly, the DA has a vested interest in the continued Presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa as a puppet and mascot of their financial interests and those of their handlers, and any massive demonstrations against him are a threat to their agenda to privatize all spheres of South African society.
Political parties such as the United Democratic Movement (UDM), will be demonstrating at the North Gauteng High Court in Tshwane, while other parties and civil movements have also expressed their intention to raise their concerns through the courts or on the picket lines, on the 20th of March 2023.
The attempt by the DA to single out the EFF, and frame the National Shutdown as the sole preserve of the EFF is equally deliberate, because the DA has realized that the EFF remains its only ideological enemy and a direct threat to its status as the Official Opposition Party. Their legal action is therefore doomed for failure, because it lacks basis, and is a poor publicity stunt to appeal to an anti-democratic, right-wing constituency.
It is further telling that the DA has at this stage only applied for an interdict against the National Shutdown only in the City of Cape Town, as it reveals their narrow fetish to categorize the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape as a province separate from South Africa.
The conditions in the Western Cape are dire, particularly for black people who live on the outskirts of wealth, suffer a lack of service delivery and experience poverty as a quality life is reserved for white people in the province.
The poverty and exclusion of our people from dignity is harshest in the Western Cape, where farm workers are paid in alcohol, Africans use pota-pota toilets and their lives are defined by racist spatial planning.
The people of South Africa, including those in the Western Cape, are tired of the conditions in this country. The massive unemployment, high rate of crime and Gender Based Violence, lack of service delivery, corruption and the continued rolling electricity blackouts can no longer be tolerated.
The DA cannot and will not stop the overwhelming frustration and pain of our people in defence of Cyril Ramaphosa, and these frustrations will be felt on our streets on the 20th of March 2023.
It Is No Retreat, No Surrender. Join The National Shutdown on The 20th Of March, Freedom Day! Ramaphosa Must Resign Now!
Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 14 March 2023
